Review of Life (2017) by Russ M — 29 Mar 2017

Life (2017) - A claustrophobic thriller set in the wide expanse of space. It tries, but ultimately doesn't measure up to the success of Alien in this regard. The result, however, is a better than average creature feature.

It has intense moments of peril and anticipation that had me saying "c'mon, c'mon, c'mon" in my head. The score complimented these moments extremely well. The creature is altogether creepy and eerily smart. It had a unique look that set it apart from anything I'd seen in other films.

I did actually care about the characters though there is next to zero character development. But even with the minimal exposition, the sense of camaraderie and history within the crew comes through perfectly. The casting of Ryan Reynolds in an ensemble movie, however, struck me as strange. He's just too big of a presence for me to buy in a supporting role nowadays. It doesn't help that he basically just plays Ryan Reynolds in a space suit. Usually I like his shtick, but it pulled me out of the movie from time to time.

I know this next part is going to be vague, but there is one basically inexcusable choice that a character makes just past the halfway mark of the movie. It seemed wholly unnecessary to do this in order get them where the writer wanted them to be. They in fact had a built-in way that they could accomplish the same result without dumbfounding the audience with this backwards motivation. After you see it I'm sure you'll recognize what I'm referring to.

It has plenty of great moments, but didn't quite reach where I thought it could go. It deserved more than the measly $12 million opening it received, though with the marketing and seemingly generic storyline I can't say I'm too surprised. If I had to rank them, I'd go cereal, this movie, then the board game.